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Batman in Konoha. Chapter 44
🕑 Added 2025-07-11 16:10:15 +0000 UTC"Thank you for the invitation, Uruchi-san," Shisui said with a warm smile as he stepped inside the house. His voice was cheerful, but there was a weariness in it that he made no effort to hide. On the doorstep behind him, wet and silent, slipped in Itachi and Sasuke.
Outside, the rain was still pouring down. The sky was dark and starless, and it felt like all of Konoha had been swallowed by a cold, trembling veil of gray. Water dripped from their hair, pant legs clung to their legs. Behind them remained the charred skeleton of their home.
"It's only for one night," Shisui said quietly as they stepped into the hallway. He removed his soaked cloak and began drying his hair with the towel their hostess handed him. "I'll start looking for rental ads in the morning. I don’t want to impose..."
"Don’t rush," Uruchi gently interrupted. Her voice was warm, like soup. "We're from the same clan, Shisui. The Uchiha should stick together. That’s only natural, isn’t it?"
She turned, leading them further into the house, and added offhandedly:
"By the way, there’s a house sitting empty near the Naka Shrine. The owners have been gone a long time, but I still have the key. I’ll take a look—maybe you can settle there. It’s old, but sturdy."
Shisui froze for a moment, then nodded, almost in relief.
"That would be wonderful. Thank you, Uruchi-san. You have no idea how much this means to us."
For the first time that night, he felt like the ground beneath his feet wasn’t quite so unstable.
"So what caused the fire?" Uruchi suddenly asked as she paused by the coat rack. Her voice was calm, but a flicker of genuine concern passed through her eyes.
Shisui bit his lip for a moment. Then answered, barely lying:
"An old gas stove. I kept saying it needed replacing... well, guess we waited too long."
"You're lucky no one got hurt," Uruchi said, shaking her head as she took the damp towels from the boys. She looked at them with gentle concern, not as shinobi, but as teenagers who’d just gone through something terrible. "And where are Fugaku and Mikoto? Weren’t they home?"
The question cracked through the air like a whip—sharp, unexpected, and dead-on.
Shisui and Itachi, composed like true ANBU veterans, didn’t show a single flicker of emotion. Their faces stayed calm, almost cold—like masks. But Sasuke flinched. Just slightly, involuntarily—but enough.
Uruchi narrowed her eyes. Her gaze was keen, unnervingly sharp for someone her age.
"They went out on clan business after dinner," Shisui said quickly, stepping toward Sasuke and wrapping an arm around his shoulders, as if shielding him. "Sasuke’s just worried. He’s thinking about how Father will react when he hears about the fire."
"Ah, I see..." Uruchi raised her brows slightly, but didn’t press. "Well, Fugaku is a strict man, true. But Mikoto—she’s got a soft heart. She wouldn’t scold anyone. More likely she’d hug you, fuss over you, maybe even bake a pie."
With that, she turned and disappeared down the hallway, carrying the wet towels with her.
"Go on to the kitchen, children. I’ll prepare your beds in the meantime."
Uruchi’s kitchen was small but cozy: the stove crackled softly, the walls were covered with photos and cookbooks, and the shelves smelled of dried herbs and spices. It was long past midnight, but none of them felt like sleeping. In their minds, the crimson glow of flames still burned... and Mikoto’s mad smile.
Itachi silently set the kettle on the stove.
Meanwhile, Shisui rummaged through the cupboards. From one he pulled out a box of vanilla cookies, shook it, peeked inside, and grunted in approval.
"Even a bit of jam left..." he noted, already sitting down at the table and spreading it on the cookies.
"How can you even think about food?!" Sasuke suddenly shouted, springing up from his chair. His fists clenched, his eyes glinting with anger and helplessness. "We should be looking for them! For Mom and Dad! And you—you’re just sitting here like nothing happened!"
"Acting on emotion will only make things worse," Itachi said calmly as he poured the hot water into cups—quoting one of Fugaku’s favorite lines.
"And besides, the rain washed everything away," Shisui added without looking up from his cookie. "No tracks, no scents—just puddles and mud. There’s no point running around the village with no clue where or why."
"Then come up with something!" Sasuke shouted, slamming his fist on the table hard enough to rattle the cups. "You’re smart! You know how to do everything! Why aren’t you doing anything?!"
This time, Itachi looked up. His gaze was cold as steel—not angry, just severe.
"Quiet," he said, softly but firmly. "By yelling, you're putting Father and Mother at risk. No one must know what happened tonight. Do you understand me?"
Sasuke swallowed hard. He froze under his brother’s stare, like caught in a sniper’s sights. Then he exhaled shakily and nodded.
"I understand..."
"We’ll figure everything out," Shisui said, his tone now serious. He set the cookie aside and reached for his cup. "Just not right now. Right now, we need to rest and gather our strength. We can’t afford a mistake."
Silence settled over them. The kitchen grew quiet. Only the rain tapping on the roof and the soft crackling of the fire could be heard.
Soon, Sasuke sat back at the table. He took a sip of tea, then another. Warmth spread through his body, blurring the edges of fear and weariness. His eyelids grew heavy. Within minutes, he was resting his cheek on his hand, breathing softly.
"You spiked his tea with a sedative," Shisui said, eyeing Sasuke’s empty cup. His voice held a note of gentle reproach.
"He’s better off asleep," Itachi replied calmly. "I’m speaking as a doctor."
Shisui huffed and shrugged.
"Maybe you’re right. Though I would’ve preferred you tell him openly."
"You know he wouldn’t have agreed. He’d have run out into the rain with a flashlight, trying to find Father. Then the police would’ve picked him up and started asking questions," Itachi said quietly, almost emotionlessly. "We can’t let that happen."
"Fair point..." Shisui rubbed his forehead tiredly. "Did you try contacting Fugaku through the ring?"
"Silence," Itachi replied, idly turning the ring on his finger. "No response at all."
"Same here," Shisui sighed. "Then it’s time for plan B."
He quickly bit his finger and formed a sequence of seals, activating a summoning. A puff of smoke bloomed—and a small bat appeared on the table.
"Hi there!" squeaked Keita, sniffing the air. "Smells like cookies! And jam! Were you waiting for me?"
"Help yourself," Shisui said with a smile, offering him the bowl of cookies. "I know you’re a vegetarian. It’s homemade strawberry jam."
Keita didn’t need to be asked twice—he latched onto the treat, chewing with comical enthusiasm, his sharp ears twitching.
"Keita," Itachi said, "we need you to contact Fugaku. Immediately."
The bat licked his paws, sighed, and nodded.
"Easy. Give me a second."
He formed tiny hand seals with his back legs—the movement looked almost cartoonish. But nothing happened. No flash of chakra, no response.
Keita frowned—as much as a bat could—and spread his wings.
"Recipient unavailable," he said matter-of-factly, then reached for another cookie.
Itachi leaned forward sharply, his eyes narrowing.
"What does that mean?"
Keita didn’t answer right away. He thoughtfully licked his fingers, like a connoisseur finishing a tasting, and only then replied:
"My chakra can’t reach him. That means either he’s consciously blocking the summon, or... he’s dead."
The room froze. Even the ticking of the old clock seemed loud.
"Or sealed," Itachi added coldly, forcing himself to think like a strategist, not a son. "A third possibility. Someone could be holding him in a sealed barrier."
"Could be," Shisui nodded, though his fingers tightened on the edge of the table. "Keita, listen. We need to launch a reconnaissance."
He leaned in closer, his voice firm.
"Summon your brothers. Sweep the entire village. Every district, including the outskirts. If you find Fugaku, Mikoto, or any sign of snakes—report immediately."
Keita set the cookie down, wiped his snout with the back of his wing, and nodded.
"Understood. I’ll contact you as soon as something turns up."
With that, he shot into the air. Through the crack in the open window, Keita vanished into the night—like a scrap of shadow dissolving into the rainy sky.
"I think we should get some sleep too," Itachi said. He lifted Sasuke from the chair easily, as if his brother weighed nothing at all. Carefully, he cradled him in his arms like a mother carrying her child after a long day. "We’ll need our strength."
Shisui looked at him, uncertain.
"Can you really sleep, knowing something’s happened to your father?"
"Panic won’t help anyone," Itachi said without hesitation. "And in the morning we become hunters again."
He left the room without looking back. His footsteps were soundless.
Shisui remained at the kitchen table. His thoughts buzzed in his head like bees in a hive. He couldn’t relax. But he also knew—in this state, he wouldn’t be able to do much.
If Konoha found out that it was Mikoto who killed the councilors… and nearly killed the Hokage… If the truth came out—they’d execute her.
With that thought, he stepped into the darkness of the bedroom.
///
Shisui woke to a light, almost ticklish weight on his chest.
He knew immediately—it was Keita.
"Already?" he mumbled, sitting up. His eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark yet, but the sky outside was still black. Dawn was at least an hour away.
Keita leapt off his chest and landed softly on the table.
"Found it," he whispered. "A cave with fresh scent of bats, snakes… and death."
Shisui sat up straight. Sleep fell from him like a cloak slipping from his shoulders.
"That’s the place. Lead the way."
"I’m coming too," said Itachi, rising from the bed.
Shisui turned to him, now fully alert. His voice turned hard:
"Actually, I need you on something else. Go to the temple basement. Dismantle all explosive seals that might still be there. We can’t take any chances. Any evidence linking Orochimaru to Mikoto—must disappear."
Itachi froze. His face remained unreadable, but a spark flickered in his eyes. He was assessing the situation, calculating risks, weighing Fugaku’s code against his own logic.
"Agreed," he said at last. "I’ll destroy everything. No one will find a thing."
Shisui gave a short, almost proud smile.
"That’s why I love you, brother. I can always count on you."
His eyes moved to Sasuke. The boy still slept, curled up under a blanket. His breathing was steady, face calm. He was far too young for what had happened—and far too smart to remain in the dark for long.
"Let him sleep," Itachi said as he turned to go. "Morning’s going to be rough."
Shisui nodded, and a second later, stepped out after Keita—into the wet, dark streets of Konoha.
///
Keita led Shisui to the Forest of Death, to the place where the cave had once been. Now the entrance was completely buried under rock and debris, as if the earth itself had tried to hide the scene. In front of the collapse, a dozen bats sat in grim silence—black, alert, as if guarding the entrance from intruders.
"There’s a lot of blood inside," Keita whispered hoarsely, sniffing the air. His ears twitched from tension. "Fresh. Fugaku and Mikoto."
Shisui silently ran his palm across a shard of stone. It was warm. He felt the vibrations—there had definitely been a battle here, and energy still hung in the air like static.
"We need to clear the rubble," he said quietly and formed hand seals. "I’ve got a technique for this."
Creating a shadow clone, he nodded to it briefly:
"Clear it out. But don’t destroy the evidence. We need to understand what happened here."
"Come on, give me some credit," the clone smirked, activating his Sharingan. "I’m you, remember? I want answers too."
Shisui turned and darted deeper into the forest. His destination—the old tower where the final stages of the Chuunin Exams used to take place. During the exams, the place had been full of fighting; the rest of the time, it sat abandoned. Only a few knew there was a technical room deep within it—the heart of the Forest of Death’s surveillance system.
He reached it swiftly and silently. The old concrete corridors seemed to greet him. He had come here often, before Fugaku entered his life. Back then, he had been just Shisui—not a student, not a son, not a police officer. Just a shinobi, searching for his place.
The door to the control room was locked with a simple mechanical lock. He didn’t use force. Pulled out lockpicks, chose the right one—a click, and the door opened.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of dust and machine oil. A row of monitors lined the wall, crisscrossed by dozens of fūinjutsu lines. These seals were woven into the forest itself: trees, stones, leaves—anything could be an eye.
Shisui powered up the system. His fingers moved quickly, confidently. He found the right time—early evening, the day before.
The image was clear. One camera captured Fugaku sprinting through the forest. Someone was ahead of him. A slim figure with pale skin, long black hair. The face was hidden, but the identity was Mikoto.
He turned off the footage and began deleting files—every recording from the past thirty days. He couldn’t risk anyone, even by accident, seeing what he had seen. When the ANBU investigators started their audit, they wouldn't know which exact day the footage had been erased.
He left the tower. On his way back, he could still sense the clone’s chakra—work was ongoing. By the time he reached the cave-in, the stones had already been cleared. The clone stood beside a few bats, examining the entrance. The cave was damaged but passable.
Shisui created five more shadow clones. A pulse of chakra, a dull ring in his skull. He groaned but didn’t falter. Now was not the time to conserve strength.
“You know what to do,” he exhaled.
Seven pairs of Sharingan flared in the dark, and the investigation began. They moved in perfect sync, like a wave: documenting evidence, analyzing damage, scanning every detail.
Signs of battle were everywhere. Charred walls, scorch marks from lightning across the floor. In one spot, the ground had been split by wind-based force.
“Judging by the collapse and the traces of an underground river,” one clone said, “five elemental natures clashed here.”
Bodies lay on the ground—crushed bats, dead snakes. In a corner, nearly dissolved in water, were scrolls bearing the Yamanaka clan’s crest. The parchment had disintegrated, the ink smeared. Only one scroll remained intact—sealed and reinforced with fuinjutsu. The Hokage’s emblem still gleamed on it.
Further in, half-buried in rubble, lay a communicator ring—snapped clean in two.
“Over here...” a clone called, pointing. “Fugaku’s utility belt. And Kusanagi.”
Shisui approached. The belt was torn, one of its buckles missing. Two freezing bombs were absent from its compartments. The sword lay nearby, coated in dust and soot.
“You need to see this,” another clone called.
Shisui came closer—and froze. On the floor lay a shed layer of skin, like from a snake. But this one was human. Female. He recognized it instantly.
“Mikoto...” he whispered. His stomach clenched.
“Here,” said a third clone.
In a pool of blood lay thick chunks of grayish flesh, marbled with veins. Shisui knelt and understood instantly. This wasn’t just flesh. It was a heart. And inside pulsed a familiar chakra.
“Fugaku…” he breathed, stumbling back.
He covered his face with his hands, fingers digging into his hair.
“What the hell happened here?”
///
Shisui returned to Uruchi’s house in the late afternoon. In the six hours that had passed, he’d found no answers. He had swept the Forest of Death, analyzed footage, questioned the bats, examined every trace—but nothing. The picture that formed was horrific, bloody, chaotic… and all too convincing: Fugaku and Mikoto were dead. And yet he still couldn’t find the most important thing—the bodies.
In the hallway, Sasuke was waiting. He stood in the middle of the corridor like a frozen shadow, and his eyes bore into Shisui as if he had betrayed him.
“You left me,” Sasuke said quietly, but with accusation.
“I’m sorry, kid,” Shisui replied evenly. He wanted to comfort him, to put a hand on his head, but Sasuke jerked away and slapped the hand aside.
“I was following a lead. I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. I didn’t want to give you false hope.”
“It’s all pointless!” Sasuke shouted. His voice cracked, lips trembling. “I know! Mom and Dad are dead!”
Shisui stopped. The words hit like a punch. But he didn’t argue. He knew that kind of anger—it was armor against grief.
“Why do you think that?” he asked gently.
Sasuke’s head snapped up. His eyes flared red, the Sharingan spinning—three tomoe in each.
“Because it was Orochimaru!” he screamed. “He killed the Hokage! Killed the councilors! And now my parents! He kills everyone! I hate him!”
Shisui blinked. Yesterday—just one tomoe. Today—three. It should’ve been impossible.
Unless Sasuke, believing his parents truly dead, had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan.
Shisui dropped to one knee in front of him and pulled him into a tight hug. Sasuke struggled but didn’t pull away. He just breathed heavily, every muscle taut like a bowstring.
“It’s going to be okay,” Shisui whispered into his ear. “I swear to you. I’ll find them.”
///
Night fell, but Shisui didn’t even think about sleeping. He sat by the window, arms crossed, staring into the darkness. Thoughts swirled in a storm. Every clue, every trace, every glance, every print in the mud—his mind kept building the puzzle, but it refused to take shape.
He remembered how, once, Fugaku had told him about true instinct. Every great detective, he said, at some point feels everything click into place—like a flash of light in the mind. You just know the answer, even if you can't explain why. It's not logic. It's not foresight. It's intuition.
And now, in the dead silence of the night, Shisui felt that very click.
Freezing bombs. An underground river. A collapse.
He stood up sharply and threw the window open. In the next instant—he was gone, vanishing into the night.
The Forest of Death greeted him with a cold wind and the scent of damp earth. Shisui returned to the same cave—right where he had found the signs of battle. He formed hand seals, inhaled, and released a powerful stream of fire straight into the center of the floor. The stone flared, cracked, and caved in, revealing a hidden passage below.
He jumped down—into darkness.
Below, an underground river murmured. The water was black and cold as death. The damp stone walls echoed with the sound of his breath.
“Knowing how meticulous Fugaku was…” Shisui whispered, “he knew about this place.”
He walked slowly along the riverbank, his Sharingan piercing through the shadows, until he saw something pale and translucent caught between the rocks.
A block of ice.
And inside—it was them.
Fugaku and Mikoto. Their bodies were battered, bruised, burned. Shisui stared in horror. Mikoto lay with her eyes open. Not fear, not pain—exultation. In that final moment, she had understood. She realized what Fugaku was doing. He couldn’t kill her. Fugaku believed there was still a second chance for her.
In Fugaku’s clenched hand was a shattered freezing bomb. Which meant he had made it. He’d reached his belt. He’d triggered the bomb and frozen them both before the collapse hurled them down to this lower level. The cave’s cold and the icy river’s current had kept the ice intact all this time.
On Fugaku’s face was a faint, barely visible smile. Calm. Fatherly. As if he were saying, “You can do this, son. I believe in you.”
Shisui dropped to his knees before the frozen block. His hand rested on the ice.
“I found you, Father.”
Comments
Phantom knight who can’t think of a better nicknam
Damn that was an amazing chapter now he just needs to learn senjutsu and he’s pretty much set for a good while
